freud's last session | historical context

FREUD'S LAST SESSION is a fictional story firmly set in a historical time.  Here's some of the background.

Freud’s Last Session is set on September 3, 1939, the day that England entered World War II, two days after Germany’s invasion of Poland.

Immediately people began to leave London and other major cities for the country side, especially those with children. Citizens were provided with gas masks and instructed to go underground when air raid sirens sounded. Those who did not have bunkers or basements available would go to the Underground or neighbours’ homes.

A year previous, in 1938, Sigmund Freud fled growing anti-Semitism in Austria for London. He had his Vienna office replicated in London.

At this time, CS Lewis was working as a professor at Oxford University, just outside London. He had recently published his first book, The Pilgrim’s Regress, which satirized Freud.